


Savoir/Connaître

by sketchnurse



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Bedelia du Maurier knows, Gen, Implied Cannibalism, Implied Character Death, Implied Violence, arbutus trees, extended metaphors all over the place, hannibal makes someone swallow their own tongue, meat is murder, veal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-22
Updated: 2013-06-22
Packaged: 2017-12-15 19:52:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/853411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sketchnurse/pseuds/sketchnurse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not many men can have another swallowing their own tongue. Dr. Bedelia du Maurier happens to have one such man as a patient.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Savoir/Connaître

_si elle sait, est ce qu’elle le connaît?_

 

“I can no longer handle him as my patient,” Hannibal says to her, paperwork already in hand for her to take, since he knows her well and knows she will. 

“And why is that?” A bystander hearing them would have thought them both utterly bored by their conversation, but is it not good practice for psychiatrists to be measured, controlled, wholly regulated in their every action, and dangerously neutral? 

Good practice for her; for him, even more certainly.

“He is too much temptation.” 

“Temptation for what, Dr. Lecter?” 

She smiles. So does he. 

 

\--- 

 

She is attacked in her office, by a patient. Dr. Lecter’s former patient. 

People are not meant to bubble so vigorously under their surfaces, and so there is no surprise that it happens, only that it is then, that it is there, that it is her. 

His sister, or his estranged daughter, perhaps, would have made for more convenient targets. 

But when he boils over, when his psychosis erupts, magma into lava, neuroses into violence, she is proximal, and so she is the one hit with all that had been futilely contained. 

She can almost see a ghost of their secret smiles on Hannibal’s face, as he looks on the tableau he has walked into: a colleague backed up against her desk, a former patient with a knife and a hundred pounds on his psychiatrist.

Hannibal greets them. Hannibal begins to talk. 

The only thing that saves her is that a man swallows his own tongue. 

“You shouldn’t let that become a speciality.” she says, calm even through the heart that still pounds; her mind does not feel that the knife is far enough away yet, in any dimension.

“Neutralizing violent patients?”

“Killing them with their own tongues. That particular method is quite…distinctive.” It is the most she has ever let him see, of what she knows. The circumstances are extenuating. It would be impossible for him to pretend not to be a man who could talk a man to his own death, and with such relish in his voice, so she allows herself that one indulgence. There won’t be another opportunity, not when mutual knowledge means compliance, fault. 

He knows the dangers of patterns. He develops them, anyway. He is a man very attached to his routine, to his comforts, his familiar indulgences. 

It pains her, knowing that Hannibal knows full well his vices will be his downfall. Still. She can try. She is a psychiatrist, and she will try to better him. 

 

\---

 

“I’m going to retire.” she tells him when he comes to her office, weeks after the attack. She folds her coat over her arm and makes no move to take his; he must know that she is readying to leave. He does not make any move to get out of her doorway. 

He is asking for detail with his lack of words, and she obliges. 

“I found myself unable to give today’s patient the attention and skill that he deserved. I believe the attack has altered my ability to practice.” 

“And why is that?”

“I’ve been becoming disinterested in my field; more acutely, with my patients. The attack reminded me of why.”

He looks. She considers. 

“People are easily reduced to base things. I’m finding this more and more uninspiring.” 

“You crave sophistication. Purpose. Design.” She mulls this over, finds that his words, as usual, are chillingly accurate. Or rather, that the accuracy is chilling.

Her weakness, of course, is that his particular chill is _enthralling_. 

“Situations such as the one you diffused are simply proof that intelligent intention is the exception to the rule.”

“And if you had a patient who was not purely the plaything of his subconscious?”

She picks up her briefcase, turns the lights off. Hannibal still stands in her doorway, giving no signs of intending to move, but when she make to leave, he steps aside, a perfect gentleman.

She walks past him, does not afford him a look. 

“You can start Monday. Please send me your schedule.”

She can _hear_ his smile, in that particular ensuing silence. 

 

\---  
\---

 

“If Will Graham were a tree, what kind of tree would he be?” Her tone, her pacing, suggests whimsy, a throwaway question. Hannibal answers almost immediately. 

“An arbutus. The madrona.”

“And do you find arbutuses to be beautiful?”

“I find them to be exquisite.”

“What is so exquisite about them?”

Hannibal smiles, and she thinks that he is perhaps glad to find an excuse to wax poetic about the beauty of his friend, his patient, his dependent, tell her why he is risking such blurred boundaries, such obvious trails. 

“Their form is accentuated by the delicacy of their peeling bark.”

She knows. “On other trees, it would look wrong. It would take away from their aesthetic.”

“They do not look diseased, not to a person who knows their nature. It is simply the course of things, for the bark to mature and peel from the green underneath.”

“It’s how the tree…works.”

“If you recognize this, you can allow yourself to see the beauty in degeneration. Their appearance is also deceiving; while one might assume they are a deciduous variety, they are in fact evergreen.”

“A madrona is set apart in two ways, then, one more obvious than the other.”

“Yes.”

“When their bark is stripped off by human hands, that wound is more conspicuous than natural peeling.”

He is already looking at her, of course, but she knows when he shifts his focus more fully to her, and he does so now, quirks his head ever so slightly. 

Undertones, subtext: they make for stimulating conversations, ones that are hard for an outsider to fully follow. And they must do this, because they do not speak frankly; the person suit does not speak frankly. _They_ cannot speak frankly, not as what they are in this room. Perhaps if she knew him in other places, she could see. 

She has seen, in an office where a man had died choking.

Hannibal looks at her, and she cannot look at _him_ , not just then, but she has enough. 

“This metaphor is becoming very extended.” 

“Hannibal.” She has things to say to him, things he should listen to, things he won’t listen to, but. He is being foolish, and he is her patient, and he is… she does not want him to fumble with the strings he is pulling, find them tangling. She would not enjoy that particular mess. “If you are so eager to see the tree beneath the bark, watch it fall off on its own. If it seems natural enough, no one will care to examine it more closely. Perhaps the climate will be blamed. Improper drainage. Sudden oak death.”

“And I will not be connected as a person who would want to… peel bark, if I leave none pulled prematurely.” 

She nods, smiles in partial satisfaction, but she knows he will not take enough of her advice to light. He is sensible, yes, controlled and with so much power, but his curiousity is such an overwhelming force that she feels the battle being lost, the battle never having really started. 

“Will they not wonder why I had not seen any… sudden oak death?”

“It would be preferable to be found negligent, not malevolent.”

It is so very impossible for him to be the former, but people will not want to see him as the latter. Not Dr. Hannibal Lecter, staple of the Baltimore social scene, so charitable to troubled Will Graham, so accomplished in his craft. 

They do not know just how accomplished he is. She feels privileged to have that knowledge. She feels privileged not to have paid a higher price for it. 

“How did you know about the arbutus?”

“You should be more careful with your sketchbook, Hannibal.”

She is right. He should know, by now.

 

\---

 

Curiousity, as the saying went, ended up killing the cat. 

It is not so hard to see how, as Hannibal wonders at the possibilities Will Graham possesses. He extends himself, playing closer and close to what could easily get him caught, what could easily get him killed. 

“Whatever you’re doing with Will Graham, _stop_.” 

He won’t. He cannot. He must. 

He is sitting, she is standing. And she is finding his frustration with her reasoning very grating, but he is her patient, and she must continue. 

He still believes his goals to be worth the risk. She is growing tired of his need to cultivate his Will Graham; she is growing tired of worrying over him. 

She is a creature of curiousity herself, but they do not live in a world where every whim can be catered to. There are rules, restrictions, risks. 

Relieving the pressure may turn out to be a more delicate procedure than is safe for him. 

“Do you hold natural form above artificial?” he asks her, after sufficient pause. He is clearly a blend of both, in his tailored three-piece suit and his perfect coiffeur and his blank face, the red eyes behind it all. But he is not their subject. 

But he is. She worries over what might happen to him, should he find himself lost to his own machinations. 

“I believe there are mediums more suited to one or the other. It would be impossible for a cliff to be eroded in the same manner by human hands as by water.” 

“Are there not inherent properties of the medium that will influence the final form, certain features that will be revealed, no matter the means?”

“There are certain glaring differences between Mount Rushmore and the cliffs of Dover.” One is deliberate, constructed with the constructor’s purpose. Intended. Designed. 

“I cannot argue against that.”

“You could,” She glances at her watch, regretful that it is nearly four o’clock. “But you are as aware as I am that we don’t have the time.”

“No. Unfortunate, that we don’t.”

“I agree.”

He stands, leaves, and she watches him, sees him turn slightly to acknowledge his departure.

“Thank you, Bedelia.”

“Hannibal.” His eyebrows rise, slightly. She wishes she did not have to attend her sister-in-law’s baby shower. She wishes she did not have anything to do but stop this man from overrendering his designs. “You have to stop extending yourself so far.”

He knows. She supposes he will try, but it is too possible that trying will not be enough. 

She wonders what words could have Will Graham choking on his own tongue. It is doubtless that Hannibal would know them. 

It is doubtless that he knows hers. 

 

\---

 

He fumbles with his strings, and they tangle. Some break. Some wind around what they are controlling, some so tightly that they kill. She had been right; she has no taste for the mess Hannibal has found himself in. 

His design is flawless, every contingency working perfectly, but he had not wanted contingency to be necessary. She can see it in his eyes, in the tears that do not fall, in the half truths so powerful he may as well be telling her everything. His purpose is distorted. 

He had wanted to solve Will Graham, and in solving him, save him. There are too many things that solve and save could mean, and he could provide anyone with whatever definition suited them, so he is safe, but he is also _failing_. 

“It’s hard to accept that I could fail them both, so profoundly.”

She accepts it. She had seen it coming. She had had time to prepare. 

And he has not failed himself to the degree of Abigail and Will, not yet. It is her only comfort. She can only hope that he survives all that is to come, that he is safe inside his person suit, that whatever man lives within it weathers as little damage as possible. 

 

\---

 

“Controversial dish, veal.”

She watches his face, lifts her fork, sees his eyes as she takes her bite. 

“Mmm.” 

Is it wrong to take something so young, decide that its purpose is now, take it from where it must feel safe and try to turn it into its final form? What if it goes wrong? What if the blood is not properly drained, what if the meat is spoiled? What could have been wasted? 

Is it wrong to take any animal and tell it that it had always been raised for the slaughter? That its nature had always been _meat_? To never give it a chance to be anything else?

But Hannibal knows, Hannibal always knows. Hannibal knows enough to have a man swallow his own tongue. Risks, versus rewards. Two projects not fully paid off, two final results near ruined, but. Will Graham is not dead, and Hannibal still may have his prize. Will’s incarceration had not been his favoured plan, but he is alive, and so he can be… saved, though not for his own safety; he will be for Hannibal’s purposes. And Abigail… 

She has a full plate of food, and expertly cooked. The veal is suited well enough to this, she thinks. A fine alternative. 

“You have to be careful, Hannibal. They’re starting to see your pattern.” 

Perhaps he will understand now, with all that has happened. With Will Graham imprisoned, with Abigail Hobbs dead. Perhaps he will listen to her, at this dinner table, see what she sees, know how close he is dancing to being revealed for what he is. 

She talks. He must understand. _That_ pattern. They will see _that_ pattern, and because of it they may finally have a reason to wonder, properly, what he is. 

“Tell me, Dr. du Maurier, have your beliefs about me begun to unravel?”

She smiles, slight and familiar. Her beliefs about Hannibal had never been wound like those of Jack Crawford, Alana Bloom, Will Graham. They are not unravelling at all. 

She takes another bite, watches him again, sees the smile in his eyes, and she is reminded why the burden of his shortcomings is worth watching him thrive so very well in his elements. 

“Are you familiar with the word _mamihlapinatapai_ , Dr. Lecter?”

“The most succinct word in the world? Yes.”

She looks at him. He looks at her. 

The veal is delicious. Well-seasoned, prepared with the utmost of care, and perfect, despite its unfortunate, early end. 

Dr. Bedelia du Maurier knows.

**Author's Note:**

> The arbutus tree native to many areas of the west coast of North America is known by the scientific name _Arbutus menziesii_. In British Columbia, it is known simply as the arbutus, but in America, it is more typically called the madrone or madrona. The wood left exposed by the peeling of mature bark will sometimes feel unusually cool to the touch. 
> 
>  
> 
> The word _mamihlapinatapai_ is, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, the most succinct word in the world. It is considered to be extremely difficult to define; the definition that the Guinness Book uses is this one: a look shared by two people, each wishing that the other will offer something that they both desire but are unwilling to suggest or offer themselves. However, this alternate definition may also be used:
> 
> It that look across the table when two people are sharing an unspoken but private moment. When each knows the other understands and is in agreement with what is being expressed. An expressive and meaningful silence.
> 
> It is the second definition that is most relevant to this piece.
> 
>  
> 
> The French at the beginning of the piece roughly translates to this: if she knows, does she know him?
> 
> The verb ‘to know’ in English may be translated two ways into French. The first, _savoir_ , can be used in several ways, the most common of which is the knowing of facts. The second, _connaître_ , implies a more intimate knowledge, and familiarity. Any person may know France in the first sense, but a resident will know it in the second.


End file.
